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Islamist rebels reject united front

Not all anti-Assad factions on board with coalition backed by West

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoAmr Abdallah Dalsh | REUTERSA Turkish soldier speaks with Syrian boys trying to cross from the northern Syrian town of Ras al-Ain into Turkey. About 40,000 people have died in the war’s 20 months.

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BEIRUT — Syria’s increasingly powerful Islamist rebel factions rejected the country’s new
Western-backed opposition coalition and unilaterally declared an Islamic state in the key
battleground of Aleppo, a sign of the seemingly intractable splits among those fighting to topple
President Bashar Assad.

The move highlights the struggle over the direction of the rebellion at a time when the
opposition is trying to gain the West’s trust and secure a flow of weapons to fight the regime. The
rising profile of the extremist faction among the rebels could doom those efforts.

Such divisions have hobbled the opposition over the course of the uprising, which has descended
into a bloody civil war. Activists say that nearly 40,000 people have been killed since the revolt
began 20 months ago. The fighting has been particularly extreme in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and
a major front in the civil war since the summer.

The West is particularly concerned about sending weapons to rebels for fear that they could end
up in extremists’ hands.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that, because the new coalition
has endorsed pluralism and tolerance, “It’s not surprising to us that those who want an extremist
state or a heavily Islamist state in Syria have taken issue with this.”

The Islamists’ announcement, made in an online video released on Sunday, shows the competing
influences within the rebellion, between religious hard-liners who want to create an Islamic state
in Syria — including foreign al-Qaida-style jihadi fighters — and the newly formed Syrian National
Coalition, created this month in hopes of uniting the disparate groups fighting Assad’s regime.

The National Coalition was formed under pressure from the United States, which sought a
more-reliable partner that nations could support. Key to its credibility is whether it can ensure
the support of the multiple, highly independent rebel brigades battling on the ground across Syria,
which largely ignored the previous opposition political leadership, made up of exiles.

Also yesterday, Syrian rebels said they had seized the headquarters of an army battalion near
the southern gate of Damascus, the nearest military base to the capital reported to have fallen to
opposition fighters.

Activists said the Syrian army had attacked southern districts of Damascus with shelling and
rocket fire all day to try to stop the rebels from seizing the base.

“Multiple rocket launchers are just making huge, random destruction,” said Rami al-Sayyed of the
Syrian Media Centre, an opposition organization monitoring the crackdown by Assad’s forces.